


Freedom Doesn’t Come Free

by antonomasia09



Category: Stargate SG-1, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ascended Daniel Jackson, Crossover, Episode: s06e06 Abyss (Stargate), Gen, Hallucinations, Jack O'Neill's Love of The Simpsons, Parental Jack O'Neill, Sarcophagus Addiction (Stargate), Self-Sacrifice, Slave Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonomasia09/pseuds/antonomasia09
Summary: Abyss AU. Jack returns to Ba'al's stronghold to rescue Ba'al's lo'tar, Shiro, and doesn't quite succeed.





	Freedom Doesn’t Come Free

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal thanks to my beta alyyks for her suggestions, encouragement, and tears at the thought of Jack adopting Shiro.

_Why are you here?_ Ba’al asks, and buries a dagger in Jack’s shoulder. _Why did you come back?_ Daniel asks, and winces as Jack’s shoe passes straight through him. The slave doesn’t say anything at all, just frowns thoughtfully at Jack and then disappears in a puff of smoke. Maybe he wasn’t even there to begin with.

The slave looks familiar. His name is on the tip of Jack’s tongue, just out of reach, the sudden blankness when you enter a new room and forget what you came there for. He knows the kid loves sweet juniberries, hates the form-fitting outfit he’s forced to wear, and wants to fly, more than anything in the universe. Jack has never met him before in his life.

Everything is hazy. It’s the sarcophagus, or the torture, or the memories that aren’t his but can’t be ignored. Jack knows the route to Ba’al’s torture chamber by heart, knew it even before he was dragged along it for the first time. He knows the exact chemical formula of the acid creeping towards his heart; coordinates of the nearest Tok’ra base, too, and thank god Ba’al never asks about any of that. Only about Kanan’s mission. Why did Jack come back?

There’s a damp cloth wiping his face, and Jack greedily sucks down the drops that are wrung into his mouth. “Daniel?” he whispers, his voice cracking. The cloth disappears. Jack mourns its loss.

“You said you’d take me with you,” the slave says. His voice is quiet but strong, and his tone is light and conversational. His face is a mixture of angry and confused and resigned that breaks Jack’s heart.

“It wasn’t me,” Jack says. It wasn’t. Jack would never have left this kid behind.

“Yes you would,” a voice whispers in Arabic, and Jack flinches. That voice, he definitely knows. That voice and face have haunted his dreams ever since his black ops days, sightless eyes and a trickle of blood down the forehead and schoolbooks still clutched in his hands.

“Sorry,” Jack breathes. “I’m sorry.”

“Ba’al got paranoid after you left,” the slave says. There’s a cut across his nose that wasn’t there before, deep enough to scar, and his right arm is missing below the elbow. No Goa’uld will want to take him as a host now; it’s a wonder he’s still alive. “He found out that you’d gotten access to the base schematics and records of his experiments.”

“He didn’t suspect you,” Jack says. If he had, the slave would be dead. Of course, this assumes that Jack isn’t currently talking to a ghost. If he were, he likes to think that Daniel would put a stop to that, for the sake of Jack’s sanity, even if Daniel won’t end the torture.

“Not before. He might now.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Jack says. “It’s too dangerous.”

The slave huffs at that, not a laugh, not a sob, or maybe both. He gives Jack another trickle of water.

***

Daniel was gone but now he’s back, and the slave was here but now he’s gone. Jack lies on the floor of his cell and twitches, his whole body vibrating with the sarcophagus high.

After a particularly strong twitch, rock dust falls on his face, and Jack realizes that, actually, it’s the floor that’s shaking, and the distant screams aren’t other prisoners but rather the Jaffa guards.

“What did you do?” he asks Daniel.

Daniel denies his role in the current attack underway on Ba’al’s stronghold, but Jack knows better. Daniel is sneaky, and surely Ascended Daniel is even sneakier.

The lights blink and so does the gravity, and Jack slides down the floor as it turns into a wall, then crawls his way out of the cell before it can turn back again. A few paces down the hallway, a very surprised Jaffa turns his staff weapon on Jack, but Jack throws himself at the guard without even bothering to get fully to his feet. The Jaffa goes down hard in his armor, with Jack on top.

Jack is tired and his body isn’t totally convinced he’s not dead, and he was just in the sarcophagus but he’s already craving its healing light. He still takes the opportunity to punch the Jaffa in the face. And then again, and then again. And again and again until the Jaffa stops moving and Jack rolls off of him, his hands shaking.

The Jaffa has a zat gun on his belt. Had a zat gun? Jack’s too jittery to be able to check his pulse, and too excited about the prospect of escape to care.

Daniel had thought Jack was a good candidate for ascension. Jack snorts a laugh. Yeah, right.

Now armed, even if he would prefer a P90, Jack makes his way out of the detention block. The exit nearest to the Stargate is to his left, down several more hallways. Jack turns right. The little dead Iraqi boy keeps pace, and Jack can’t tell whether he looks jealous or approving.

Jack finds the slave in Ba’al’s throne room, arm and legs chained to metal hooks in the floor. He’s pulling at his bonds frantically, eyeing cracks in the ceiling and wincing every time an airstrike hits. Ba’al himself is nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, kid,” Jack calls, but the slave doesn’t seem to hear him, too lost in his fear. There’s a red mark on his forehead - the burn from a ribbon device. Jack closes his eyes and then allows himself to think the name he didn’t want to admit he knew. The name he’d hidden away so that this would never happen.

“Shiro,” Jack says.

It works.

Shiro looks at him, wild-eyed. “He knew I went to see you, O’Neill” he says. “He thinks I’m responsible for this attack.”

He doesn’t ask for help. If he’d had any hope of escaping this life, that died when Kanan betrayed him and left him behind.

“My name’s Jack,” Jack says. “And I’m going to get you out of here,” he adds, but he has no idea how; the chains are thick, and the cuffs around Shiro’s wrist and ankles are sturdy. If he tries zatting them, he’ll just knock Shiro out.

“You should go,” Shiro says.

Kanan didn’t save him before, but damned if Jack is going to leave him now. “Not without you,” he says.

What is there in the throne room that he can use to break the chain? It’s quite bare, in the Goa’uld minimalist-yet-ostentatious style. There’s Ba’al’s throne, bolted to the ground, and over there is the sarcophagus which Jack is very carefully not looking at because if he looks at it he’ll need to get inside, and if he does that he won’t be able to rescue Shiro. His skin tingles just from being near it.

There are some rocks that have fallen from the ceiling. Jack picks up a decent-sized sharp one, and starts hammering at the chain. It’s hard to tell if he’s making any difference. Hard to even aim, with his hands shaking and the constant urge to turn around, take ten steps to his right, and sink into the blissful oblivion of the sarcophagus.

Another strike hits the fortress, closer than the previous ones, and there’s an ominous rumble above them. Jack dives on top of Shiro to cover him as a large chunk of the ceiling finally collapses. His world narrows to the thunderous crash and choking dust and warm body beneath him until something hits him on the back of the head and everything goes black.

***

Jack jumping on top of him knocks the breath out of Shiro, and for a long moment he can’t do anything but choke and then gasp. By the time he’s recovered, the building has finished disintegrating, and Shiro can see a glimpse of bright blue sky. He wiggles his way out from underneath Jack, who has gone limp and still. Jack’s hair is matted with blood and he probably has other injuries Shiro can’t identify at a glance, but he’s still breathing.

A massive slab of stone had fallen near to where Shiro was crouched, leaving a web of cracks in the floor. Shiro tugs on his chains again, and this time the ring bolting his legs to the ground comes loose. The one on his arm still won’t, but Shiro stomps on the cracks around it to widen them, and manages to pull a small section of the floor up.

He’s free! He’s finally free. For the first time since Ba’al raided his planet and stole him away so many years ago, Shiro can go wherever he wants, do whatever he wants.

Except he can’t. Because Jack just saved Shiro’s life, and now Shiro needs to save his.

He needs to get Jack to the sarcophagus; Jack is hurt badly, and withdrawal symptoms will make things even worse. But the sarcophagus is buried under a pile of rubble, and Shiro won’t be able to dig it out by himself in time.

What else can he do? Even if he can get Jack to the _Chappa’ai_ , he doesn’t know the address of any safe planet, only other strongholds of Ba’al’s. Not to mention, Lord Yu has undoubtedly engaged the _Chappa’ai_ on the other end, to prevent anyone from escaping.

The airstrikes sound more distant now, and less frequent. Lord Yu will have begun transporting troops down to the surface, to take care of any survivors and to learn what they can about the remnants of Ba’al’s facility.

There’s a chance there that Shiro could take. The demolition looks comprehensive. It’s likely that most of Ba’al’s research was destroyed either during the attack or by Ba’al himself. But Shiro has seen it, has seen his notes and experiments and plans. And Lord Yu must have a sarcophagus. Shiro could trade his information for Jack’s life. He just has to hope that he can communicate this to Lord Yu’s Jaffa before they shoot him.

It’s nearly impossible for Shiro to lift Jack onto his shoulder one-handed, but he manages it. He staggers his way out of the throne room and straight through a gaping hole in the wall. The rock still hanging from his wrist swings and hits him painfully in the shin at every step, and the chains around his ankles attempt to trip him up, but he makes his way outside.

A Jaffa patrol spots them almost immediately. Shiro falls to his knees to deposit Jack carefully on the ground, and then stays there, raising his hands in surrender.

For once, Shiro gets lucky. The leader of the patrol points his staff weapon at Shiro but doesn’t fire yet.

“I’m Ba’al’s _lo’tar_ ,” Shiro tells him. “I have information about this facility and others that Lord Yu will want to know, and I am willing to give it all to him.”

The Jaffa looks him over for a minute, then nods. “Very well. On your feet, slave.”

Shiro indicates Jack. “He needs to come too,” he says.

“For what reason?”

“I’ll explain to Lord Yu.”

The Jaffa frowns at that, but nods to his subordinates to pick Jack up, and directs them to a ring platform.

As they wait for the rings to descend, Shiro looks up again at the sky. A solitary bird, unafraid of the now-distant _Al’kesh_ fleet, swoops past. Shiro clenches his fist. He doesn’t regret his decision, but. He’d been close, so close.

***

Jack wakes up on his back in a prison cell, the tingly feeling of the sarcophagus still making his body tremble, and wonders if the attack and escape was just a dream. But this cell is dark and cold, while Ba’al’s was orange and bright, and it’s got actual bars holding him trapped.

He sits up with a groan and rubs a hand over the back of his head. There’s dried blood making a mess of it, but he doesn’t feel a wound.

“Lord Yu healed you,” Shiro says from the next cell over. He looks unhurt, thank god, but he’s pale and withdrawn in a way that worries Jack.

“Why?” Jack asks.

Shiro ducks his head. “I asked him to,” he says. “He’s going to drop you off on the nearest neutral planet with a _Chappa’ai_.”

“And what about you?”

Shiro doesn’t answer. The cuff around his wrist is gone, but his ankles are still hobbled, and the chain jingles when he moves. Jack isn’t restrained at all.

“What about you?” Jack repeats, louder. “How did you swing any of this?”

Shiro looks at the floor. “I promised to give Lord Yu all the information I had on Ba’al,” he says.

Jack’s still not operating at full capacity, but he’s pretty sure he can guess what will happen once Shiro is no longer useful to Yu. “You know he’s not going to risk you giving that information to anyone else, right?” he says.

Shiro brings his knees up to his chest. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

“Then why the hell would you do that?” Jack yells.

Shiro curls in on himself more. “You should have left me,” he says. “You would have been home by now. Safe.”

“And you’d have been dead!”

“I still will be. I just get a little while longer.”

Jack shakes his head, an immediate denial. “No way,” he says. “I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself for me.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro says. “From the moment I helped Kanan, I knew that was the end. I just thought it would be at Ba’al’s hands, not Lord Yu’s. At least Lord Yu will make it quick, probably.”

“Not happening.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Shiro says. “I appreciate it, though. It’s nice to know someone cares.”

“Yeah, well, where I’m from, we don’t give up that easily.”

Shiro shifts, inching closer to the bars that separate them. “Tell me about your planet,” he says.

Jack glares at him. “I know you’re trying to distract me.”

Shiro cringes a little, as if expecting punishment, and Jack’s not sure if it’s an act or if Ba’al really would hit Shiro for something like that, but he can’t bear the idea that Shiro might think Jack would do the same.

“I’ll tell you about Earth,” he says, more gently. “But don’t think this conversation is over.”

Shiro nods. No doubt he’s counting on keeping Jack talking about Earth long enough that there won’t be time for further argument.

“The most important thing to know about Earth is _The Simpsons_ ,” Jack declares, and proceeds to give Shiro an overview of all twelve seasons. From the looks Shiro is giving him, Jack is pretty sure the kid doesn’t believe a word he’s saying, and doesn’t understand half of them anyway. To be fair to him, the life of a family in Anytown, USA is probably completely outside his realm of experience.

Jack decides that the first thing he’s doing once he gets them both back to Earth is finding a donut for Shiro.

He’s in the process of teaching Shiro how to hum the theme song when they hear a pair of Jaffa marching towards the cell block. They both fall silent, and Shiro shivers. Shit, that was sooner than Jack expected; he hasn’t had time to come figure out an escape plan yet.

The Jaffa unlock Jack’s cell, but not Shiro’s. “On your feet,” one of them orders.

Jack makes a show of stretching out. “You know, normally I’d complain about knees and hard metal floors,” he says, “but this one is surprisingly comfortable. I think I’d rather just stay here.”

The Jaffa stare at Jack, clearly at a loss. Jack’s sure they’ve never encountered a prisoner who refused to be freed before. “I’d invite you to join me but I know how hard it is to sit in that armor,” he adds. “Really, you’re missing out.”

One of the Jaffa looks confused, but the other one is getting angry. He grabs Jack by the arms and hoists him up. Jack grunts at the manhandling and tries to twist out of the Jaffa’s grasp, but he’s being held too tightly.

“Hey, do I not even get an in-flight meal?” Jack complains. “I was looking forward to rating your prison slop. Yeah, I know, it’s all cost-cutting measures these days, but you just wait and see if I ever fly Lord Yu Airlines again.”

“Silence,” the angry Jaffa growls, and begins dragging Jack out of his cell.

Jack manages a glimpse back over his shoulder at Shiro, huddled on the floor and failing miserably at hiding how scared he is.

“You’re not going to die here,” Jack calls to him. “I swear it, I won’t let you.

Angry Jaffa backhands him across the face, and Jack winces, swallowing blood from where a tooth cut his mouth. “I’m coming back for you,” he shouts anyway as he’s pulled around a corner and loses sight of Shiro.

Jack needs to concentrate, to come up with a way to save Shiro. But the Jaffa are walking very fast and Jack is already starting to feel the tingling in his fingertips that will soon turn into shakes and sweating and then worse, if he doesn’t get another round in the sarcophagus.

Shiro made a deal - information for Jack’s freedom. Jack just needs to come up with something worth more than the intimate details of a rival Goa’uld. No pressure.

He can’t offer the secrets of the Tok’ra; he wasn’t lying to Ba’al about how scattered and useless the fragments of memory Kanan left in his brain are. Besides, he can’t in good conscience save one life through the betrayal of many more, no matter how annoying he finds them.

What else does Jack have? He can’t make any promises on behalf of Earth, at least not ones that would be believed. Extensive knowledge of _The Simpsons_ , fishing, and astronomy are useless. Gate addresses, maybe? He knows several that weren’t on the cartouche on Abydos, but it would have to be a planet of massive strategic importance that he’d be okay with handing over to a Goa’uld…

Kheb? Surely a being that could summon lightning from the sky to kill thousands of Jaffa at once must have ideas for dealing with Lord Yu’s Anubis problem, if Yu were to ask nicely. It rankles, that Oma Desala would use her powers like that on a whim but Daniel wouldn’t, not even for Jack.

It’s worth a try, at least.

There’s a ring platform up ahead, which Jack absolutely can’t step into otherwise he risks losing Shiro forever, but the shakes have started, and things are going fuzzy. “Wait,” he mumbles. “Lemme talk to Lord Yu. I know where Kheb is, I can tell you. Yu. Him.”

Confused Jaffa stops at that, and pulls his partner to a halt as well.

“He’s lying,” Angry Jaffa says. “He wants to trick us; Kheb is a myth. He’ll give us coordinates to a planet that is _korosh-ni_ , uninhabitable.”

“What if he’s not?” Confused Jaffa says. “How does he even know about Kheb?”

“From the _shol’va_ Teal’c,” Angry Jaffa says. “He has undoubtedly revealed all of our secrets to the _Tau’ri_.”

“There was a rumor a few years ago that Apophis sent a fleet to Kheb, and it vanished.”

“It could have been intercepted on the way by a rival system lord.”

“But what if it wasn’t? What if he’s telling the truth? We could learn how to enter the afterlife, as our ancestors did.”

The afterlife isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as far as Jack is concerned, but he’s not about to tell them that. “I’ve been there,” he says. “I can show you. I’ll step through the gate with you myself if that will help.”

“At least let him make his offer to Lord Yu,” Confused Jaffa begs, and Angry Jaffa finally relents.

“All right,” he says. He veers off down a side corridor, and Jack and Confused Jaffa follow. Jack fixes his gaze on the ground in front of him and tries to ignore the fact that it’s moving closer and then further away again every time he blinks. There’s someone else in the hallway with them, he thinks, but he refuses to look around and meet the accusing dead eyes of his ghost.

They reach Lord Yu’s throne room, draped in red silk, but what if it’s white silk and it just looks red because of all the blood? No, there isn’t any blood. Jack breathes heavily. He needs to focus. Angry Jaffa shoves Jack to his knees, and Jack balances himself with his hands for a moment before looking up at three Lord Yu’s, all spinning in a dizzying circle.

“You were supposed to send the _Ta’uri_ down to the planet,” Lord Yu says. “Why have you brought him to me instead?”

“My lord,” the Jaffa begins, but Jack interrupts.

“I want to make a deal with you,” he says. No time for subtlety. “I help you defeat Anubis, you let Shiro go.”

“An interesting offer,” Lord Yu says. “How do you propose to do that?”

“I can take you to Kheb,” Jack tells the left-most Yu. Shit, should he be addressing the center one? “There’s a powerful being there. She’ll be able to help you.”

“Your people are fighting Anubis as well. Why does she not help _you_?”

Crap. It’s a good question, and Jack is quickly losing higher brain functions. “She doesn’t like me,” he says. It’s not really a lie.

Lord Yu stares down at Jack, evaluating his trustworthiness, or maybe just making bets with himself as to whether or not Jack is going pass out. If he’s betting yes, he’s definitely going to win.

“Very well,” Yu decides. “We will go to Kheb and find this being. If she agrees to help, I will release the slave.”

“Awesome,” Jack says, and lets himself collapse to the floor.

***

Shiro can’t stop shivering. His cell is freezing, far too cold for someone who has spent half a lifetime in the sunny climates that Ba’al favors. It's worse now that Jack is gone, and there’s nothing to distract him from what he knows is coming. He hugs his knees and quietly hums the melody Jack taught him, hoping it will help him keep calm.

He’s not sure what’s taking so long. Lord Yu is known to be an honorable god - Shiro doesn’t need to worry about Jack, but really, how long does it take to ring someone down to a planet and then come back to interrogate your prisoner?

He wishes there was a window in his cell so that he could see the stars. He thinks he wouldn’t be so scared to die if he could just look out and see their beauty up close.

It’s impossible to measure the passage of time, but Shiro thinks it’s been at least a few hours before noises outside the cell make him push himself to his feet. He’ll keep his side of the bargain, he’ll cooperate, and he doesn’t think Lord Yu will make him suffer for long.

Then he sees who it is outside of his cell, and his stomach drops to his feet. Shiro stumbles backwards, trips over the chains and can’t catch himself, because Jack is there, Lord Yu didn’t let him go after all, and Shiro is going to die for nothing.

Jaffa unlock Shiro’s cell, and at least they’re putting them together, at least Shiro will be able to be near Jack for a little bit, unless they’re taking Shiro away right now? The Jaffa don’t shove Jack into the cell but he goes in anyway, and kneels in front of Shiro. He’s saying something, but Shiro can’t understand him, can’t really hear anything at all.

Jack touches Shiro’s hair, runs his fingers through Shiro’s bangs, and then pulls Shiro into a hug. He’s still murmuring words that Shiro can’t make out, and Shiro’s expecting the Jaffa to drag him away any second, but this feels so good, and Shiro doesn’t want it to end. He brings his arm up to cling to Jack, determined to make it hard for the Jaffa to separate them.

The flow of words still hasn’t stopped, and now, finally, Shiro is starting to be able to make some of them out, but they still make no sense. Jack is saying things like, “it’s okay,” and “you’re free,” and “I’m taking you home,” but that can’t be right, Lord Yu wouldn’t just let Shiro go. Besides, that would mean that Jack came back for him, and nobody ever…

Jack pulls back a little, and Shiro reluctantly lets him, but Jack doesn’t leave, he just reaches down and unlocks the cuffs around Shiro’s ankles. Shiro stares down at them dumbly. None of this makes any sense.

“What did you do?” he asks.

The idea that anyone would sacrifice something for Shiro is absurd, yet Jack already threw himself on top of Shiro once to save his life. And there was no reason for him to return to Ba’al’s planet in the first place if not for Shiro. Maybe, just maybe, he can let himself believe.

“I’ll tell you later,” Jack says, and pulls Shiro up so that they’re standing, Shiro leaning heavily on Jack. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

***

The Jaffa escort them back to the ring platform and down to the planet’s surface. Shiro clings to Jack the entire way. Jack suspects it’s a combination of wanting physical reassurance that he’s still there, and wanting to make sure that Jack doesn’t leave him again.

For his part, Jack would like nothing more than to get them both back to Earth as fast as possible, but Ba’al took his GDO when he was captured, and he doesn’t even have a radio to explain his situation. They’re going to have to go to the Alpha Site instead.

He dials an uninhabited planet first and takes them through, on the off chance that Lord Yu might be able to analyze that first gate and get the coordinates of their destination. Yu may not be an enemy at the moment, but he’s sure as hell not an ally, and Jack doesn’t want him knowing the Alpha Site’s address.

Shiro spins in a circle, still holding Jack’s hand, taking in the green fields and wildflowers with obvious amazement.

“This is your planet?” he says. “It’s beautiful.”

“This isn’t Earth,” Jack explains. “Neither is the next planet we’re going to; first, we have to stop at an Earth military base, where they can verify our identities. It may take a few days, but I’ll be with you the whole time, I promise. And then we’ll go to Earth, and I’ll show you movie theaters and hockey games and grill us some steaks, and you’ll get to meet the rest of my team. You’re gonna love Teal’c, I just know it.”

Shiro looks confused again, which is fair, most of that was probably gibberish to him. Someday he’ll understand it all and more besides, Jack vows to himself.

Jack punches in the symbols for the Alpha Site, and waits for the kawoosh. “There will be guards pointing guns at us when we step through,” he warns Shiro. “Don’t panic, just let me do the talking. You ready?”

Shiro nods. They step through the gate together.

Sure enough, on the other side, there are men with guns shouting at them to put their hands up. Jack complies, and tries to project confidence. He risks a glance at Shiro. The kid is breathing fast and looks like he wants to bolt, but he copies Jack.

“I’m Colonel Jack O’Neill, SG-1. Let me talk to Colonel Pierce,” Jack says, then, quieter to Shiro, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Shiro says. Jack believes him as much as he believed Daniel whenever Daniel tried that line, but it’ll do for now

Pierce shows up a moment later, and signals his men to lower their weapons. “I heard you were missing,” he says. “Glad to see you alive and in one piece, O’Neill.”

“I’m happy about it too, believe me,” Jack says.

“And who’s this?” Pierce says, turning to Shiro.

“His name is Shiro,” Jack says. “He followed me home - can I keep him? I promise to feed him and water him and give him plenty of exercise.”

Pierce laughs. Shiro looks like he’s not sure whether or not to be offended.

“I think that’s a question for General Hammond,” Pierce says. “For now, let’s just get you through medical and debriefed.”

Jack guides Shiro towards the infirmary hut, followed by a couple of airmen. There’s a figure standing by the entrance, blurry and indistinct from a distance, but wearing a cream-colored sweater and slacks utterly out of place among the drab green uniforms. Jack smiles at him, and raises two fingers to his forehead in a Cub Scout salute. “Thanks,” he whispers.

By the time they reach the hut, Daniel is gone.

Jack puts his arm around Shiro’s shoulders. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We’ll be home before you know it.”

“Home,” Shiro echoes, and Jack can hear the longing and the hope in that one word.

“Home,” Jack agrees, and squeezes tight.


End file.
